The exemplary embodiment relates to data manipulation and finds particular application in a system and method for generating macros for combining data from plural documents into a target document.
A common task in office environments is in the creation and updating of documents with information derived from other documents. This is often performed by opening several digital documents at the same time on a computer screen and having a user identify the data to be transferred in the input documents and locate the proper locations for this data in the target document. Because documents are of different formats, the user may spend a lot of time looking back and forth between the documents to make sure the correct data is selected and that it is transferred to the correct location in the target document.
While a user may use the “copy-paste” function generally provided by computer operating systems, this may not be particularly helpful when a user is transferring small pieces of data, such as a number from a particular row and column of one table to a different row and column of another. Additionally, the task is not always the simple duplication of data but may involve structuring it differently and generating new from elements selected from different sources.
As an example, consider the case of user wishing to complete a spreadsheet with numbers about headcounts per project provided by different departments and funded by different organizations. The numbers come from one table dealing with the headcount per project, which is displayed in a web browser and from another table dealing with funding and departments displayed in a power point slide. To fill the spreadsheet, for each project, the user will perform the following subtasks: search the web page where the headcount number for a given project is located, turn to the spreadsheet and find the right column and cell where the selected headcount number is to be typed and enter it, turn to the PowerPoint slide and search for the department and funding amount, return to the spreadsheet and find the right column and cell where the selected department and funding amount are to be to typed and enter them. This process is then repeated for the next project, and so on.
These are very repetitive tasks that take time because each time the user has to isolate, in potentially large tables, the cell(s) containing the information he is looking for and then identify where he has to type this information. This can lead to errors in the documents, as well as physical problems, such as eye strain or hand strain, over time. These factors have been exacerbated by the improvements in computer power and screen size, which allow the display of even greater numbers of documents at the same time.